Monday, June 22, 2009

Pop Quiz, Hotshots!!!

Personally I go for Werewolf. They're big, unpredictable, and really have no qualms with knocking your head off with a swipe of the claw. You also can't kill them with anything by a silver bullet.

And because vampires can sometimes be pussies *cough* Anne Rice *cough*. Sorry...not a big fan of the Anne Rice vamps. I can't get scared of a puffy faced whiny Brad Pitt who has better hair than me....that bitch.

I agree that the werewolf is scarier. I think it's the idea of the transformation that ups the creepiness factor over vamps. What sort of transformation do vamps go through? Their teeth extend. BFD! Werewolves, on the other hand, go through a massive physical change that extends limbs and facial features and repositions joints. That has got to hurt like hell! And it's that pain, imagined by the viewer, that helps increase the fright level. Add to that the lack of any indication that any human intelligence has remained and you've got one big wolf, who's still hurting and probably a little pissed off about it.

For me, it depends on what examples of each species you mean. Most vampires aren't that scary these days, but the one from Nosferatu scares the poo out of me. That Max Schrek guy was creepy as hell.

As for werewolves, I haven't seen too many movies with them in it and the one I mostly remember is from An American Werewolf in London (which is a great movie), and that one was pretty scary, but the wolf itself was hardly in it. Apart from that, I guess I just tend to think of the original Wolf-Man movies, and those don't scare me.

Overall, I guess I'd have to go with werewolves, just because they haven't become associated with mincing Eurotrash or teen angst the same way vampires have in pop culture. But for my money, I think zombies are scarier than both. ;)

Yeah, werewolves for me, too. Some vampires can be scary-- like Max Schrek as Nosferatu in the original version of the film, or the vampires in 30 Days of Night.And I'll admit, the Volturi in the Twilight series scare the shit out of me, too.

But if you look at the werewolf's origin stories, it's terrifying. Children being ripped to pieces in Medieval forests, loved ones torn apart. In the original stories, this was a curse of the highest order-- if you changed, you were so filled with rage and hatred that you killed what you loved, so your family would e the first to be mauled to death.

Plus, I once had a dream that a seven foot tall werewolf clawed my ribs so hard the muscle was separated and my rib bones were just... moving around. It was a pretty intense dream.

I'm probably going to be one of the few people voting for "vampire" here, because I'm going to go for the traditional (Hollywood) definition and, thus, the ones with that little thing that sets them apart from werewolves: the whole "soul-damning" thing.

I believe the original incarnation of vampires involved a demon taking over your body without pushing out your soul-- so you would have to watch as he would use your guise to hurt your family and friends. Similarly, werewolves would wake up the next morning and find out they ate mommy or daddy or little Timmy, but there's the fact you're still you for the rest of the month. But then the vampire myth evolved so that you get bitten and, whoops: no pearly gates for you. You're damned, *you* go bad, and you start doing damage as your "id" and other base emotions manifest. Suppose a slayer would give you your stake through the heart: well, then you're still fudged. Oh boy!

There's way too many variations, some which involve the soul thing, some which don't, but I think turning into a beast, no matter how painful it may be, at least only deals you a physical blow. Vampires touch you in a way you may never clean yourself, ever again.